Anatomy

Anatomy of an Error: Fazio & Mertens – Chiesa Di Totti

We have all quite rightly marveled at the rebirth of Federico Fazio this season. After bouncing between Spurs and Sevilla prior to moving to Roma, the accepted wisdom was that Fazio was just another in a long name of players long on talent and short on results. Based on his statuesque figure and technique, Fazio profiled as the ideal, albeit it a bit slow, centerback; one who could be the foundation upon which your backline was built.

For a variety of reasons, it took Fazio several years and several more changes of sceneries to put it altogether. Fortunately for us, Roma has been the beneficiary of that latent development, as Fazio has been, without a doubt, one of the best defenders in Serie A this season, so please do not take what follows as an overarching critique of Fazios abilities nor a harbinger of bad things to come. He simply goofed up, as well all do, and its been such a long time since weve dissected an individual play, I thought it might be interesting to analyze exactly what went wrong.

First up, the goal in total

As we discussed yesterday, this goal was partially a product of Fazios error mistiming Marek Hamsiks final pass, but as with most things, that only tells a portion of the story. First, Roma had to turn the ball over, then they failed to dispossess Napoli in the middle third, and lastly, and I would argue most egregiously, they gave Hamsik WAY TOO MUCH space to make that pass. It was simply a sequence of poor decisions and poor execution.

However, with all that in mind, the most visible error here was Fazios ill-timed and somewhat unnecessary attempt to intercept that pass and/or cut off the passing lane, so lets take a look at that sequence.

The thing Id like you to take notice of, besides Mertens breezing past the last link in Romas defense, is just how soon Fazio jumped on this pass. Notice how he breaks towards, and really past, Mertens before Hamsik even receives the ball. And yes, had he picked off the pass wed be hailing his aggressiveness and timing, I get that, but in this instance, with no one behind him or directly on Mertens hip, Fazios speculative attempt at stealing the ball was haphazard and completely ill advised.

Here it is in freeze frame:

At this point, Daniele De Rossi is close enough to Mertens to corral or at least obscure his path a bit, while also allowing Juan Jesus to close the gap on the left, making Fazios jump all the more hasty. Granted the angle of this photo may be misleading, but the point was simply this: Fazios gamble was completely unnecessary, had he simply held his ground and even allowed the pass to make it to Mertens, Fazio would still have been in position to make a tackle or at least commit a necessary and justified foul, and, as we mentioned, DDR and Rruan werent so far away they couldnt have closed Mertens down had Fazio held his ground

As it stood, Fazios gamble was ill-advised and poorly executed, he made a decision when he didnt have tohis choice to try and jump that passing channel ceded control to Mertens. If he held his ground, Mertens would have had to make the decision, not Fazio, and as we mentioned, with De Rossi and Juan nearby, had Fazio held firm, Mertens path to goal would have been virtually non-existent....but check this out:

Thats how agonizingly close Wojciech Szczesny was to actually saving this; a few centimeters and a couple fractions of a second. Football is nothing if not a game of inches.

Ultimately, this was a team error. From the poor play out of their back, to their inability to stop Napolis counter, down to Kostas Manolas keeping Mertens on side, this was a prime example of how a series of seemingly innocuous decisions or indecisions can doom you during a 90+ minute match.

So while Fazios error was the most glaring, he was by no means the lone culprit. And the mere fact that we can be so pedantic about his performance shows just how far he has come this season. However, as we so often warn, with the margins for error razor thin, moments like these can be devastating and quite costly.

Also, apologies for the poor quality of some of those stills and gifs, I had trouble finding decent clips.

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Anatomy of an Error: Fazio & Mertens - Chiesa Di Totti

Anatomy

Editorial: Anatomy of a ‘Do Pass’ bill in North Dakota | Grand Forks … – Grand Forks Herald

"Senate Bill 2243 creates a student loan reimbursement program for two teachers to work in a North Dakota school district or nonpublic school with fewer than 1,000 students," Forum News Service reported.

"The program will reimburse up to $4,500 per teacher in each of the first two years and up to $6,500 in the third year," with a maximum of $25,000 if the teacher is filling a critical vacancy.

So far, so good. SB 2243 now has passed the Senate and is being considered in the House.

But our point is to call attention to some of the prep work that made this billwhich is, after all, proposing new spending at a time of cutbacks everywhere elsesail through the Senate, 42-4.

Kirsten Baesler, state superintendent of public instruction, describes the process in her interview on this page. As Baesler recounts, it started with a North Dakota University System study of how well the NDUS is meeting the state's workforce needs.

Where training teachers is concerned, "what we learned is that the system graduates plenty of teachers," Baesler says.

"But if they don't get a job in Bismarck or Fargo or Grand Forks, they're choosing not to use that degree." For lots of would-be teachers, it's better to find alternative work in a bustling city than to go to work in a small-town school, especially considering the very modest salaries most rural school districts offer, it turns out.

That's solid and new information. Best of all, it's useful, too. It helped narrow down the policy-response possibilities, ruling out an attempt to, say, attract teachers from Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Then the state's leadership took the next step: They interviewed some of those Fargo and Grand Forks teachers-doing-other-things. So, what would it take to entice them to leave the bright lights and big city behind, and go to work in a North Dakota country school?

"A lot," said the teachers, as Baesler recounts. Specifically, it would take repaying their student loans, and through a much more generous program than the state currently offers.

Senate Bill 2243 was born.

To sum up, the supporters of this bill effectively researched the problem they were trying to solve, learned the particulars of that problem in North Dakota and crafted a policy that uses a targeted approach.

No wonder the bill passed the Senate. It should pass the House, too. And reformers of the future who are looking to pass laws should take a lesson from the history of SB 2243.

-- Tom Dennis for the Herald

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Editorial: Anatomy of a 'Do Pass' bill in North Dakota | Grand Forks ... - Grand Forks Herald

Embryology

For the First Time, Researchers Can Genetically Modify Human Embryos – Futurism

The UK has given researchers at the Francis Crick Institute permission to edit the genes of early-stage human embryos. This is huge news, not only in genetics and biology fields, but for science as a whole. No other researcher has ever been granted permission to perform gene editing on viable human embryos before.

The usual fears of designer babies and slippery slopes popped up, but as most of the general news sources reported, those fears are relatively unwarranted for this research. In fact, this project, with is led by Dr. Kathy Niakan, could arguably be closer to the existential hope side of the spectrum.

Niakans objective is to try to understand the first seven days of embryo development, and shell do so by using CRISPR to systematically sweep through genes in embryos that were donated from in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. While research in mice and other animals has given researchers an idea of the roles different genes play at those early stages of development, there many genes that are uniquely human and cant be studied in other animals. Many causes of infertility and miscarriages are thought to occur in some of those genes during those very early stages of development, but we can only determine that through this kind of research.

Niakan explained to the BBC, We would really like to understand the genes needed for a human embryo to develop successfully into a healthy baby. The reason why it is so important is because miscarriages and infertility are extremely common, but theyre not very well understood.

It may be hard to see how preventing miscarriages could be bad, but this is a controversial research technique under normal circumstances, and Niakans request for approval came on the heels of human embryo research that did upset the world.

Last year, outrage swept through the scientific community after scientists in China chose to skip proper approval processes to perform gene-editing research on nonviable human embryos. Many prominent scientists in the field, including FLIs Scientific Advisory Board Member George Church, responded by calling for a temporary moratorium on using the CRISPR/Cas-9 gene-editing tool in human embryos that would be carried to term.

An important distinction to make here is that Dr. Niakan went through all of the proper approval channels to start her research. Though the UKs approval process isnt quite as stringent as that in the US which prohibits all research on viable embryos the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which is the approving body, is still quite strict, insisting, among other things, that the embryos be destroyed after 14 days to ensure they cant ever be taken to term. The team will also only use embryos that were donated with full consent by the IVF patients

Max Schubert, a doctoral candidate of Dr. George Churchs lab at Harvard, explained that one of the reasons for the temporary moratorium was to give researchers time to study the effects of CRISPR first to understand how effective and safe it truly is. I think [Niakans research] represents the kind of work that you need to do to understand the risks that those scientists are concerned about, said Schubert.

John Min, also a PhD candidate in Dr. Churchs lab, pointed out that the knowledge we could gain from this research will very likely lead to medications and drugs that can be used to help prevent miscarriages, and that the final treatment could very possibly not involve any type of gene editing at all. This would eliminate, or at least limit, concerns about genetically modified humans.

Said Min, This is a case that illustrates really well the potential of CRISPR technology CRISPR will give us the answers to [Niakans] questions much more cheaply and much faster than any other existing technology.

Originally posted here:
For the First Time, Researchers Can Genetically Modify Human Embryos - Futurism

Biochemistry

Biochemical ‘fossil’ shows how life may have emerged without … – Science Daily

One major mystery about life's origin is how phosphate became an essential building block of genetic and metabolic machinery in cells, given its poor accessibility on early Earth. In a study published on March 9 in the journal Cell, researchers used systems biology approaches to tackle this long-standing conundrum, providing compelling, data-driven evidence that primitive life forms may not have relied on phosphate at all. Instead, a few simple, abundant molecules could have supported the emergence of a sulfur-based, phosphate-free metabolism, which expanded to form a rich network of biochemical reactions capable of supporting the synthesis of a broad category of key biomolecules.

"The significance of this work is that future efforts to understand life's origin should take into account the concrete possibility that phosphate-based processes, which are essential today, may not have been around when the first life-like processes started emerging," says senior study author Daniel Segr (@dsegre) of Boston University. "An early phosphate-independent metabolism capable of producing several key building blocks of living systems is in principle viable."

Phosphate is essential for all living systems and is present in a large proportion of known biomolecules. A sugar-phosphate backbone forms the structural framework of nucleic acids, including DNA and RNA. Moreover, phosphate is a critical component of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which transports chemical energy within cells, and a compound called NADH, which has several essential roles in metabolism. But it is unclear how phosphate could have assumed these central roles on primordial Earth, given its scarcity and poor accessibility.

In light of this puzzle, some have proposed that early metabolic pathways did not rely on phosphate. In many of these scenarios, sulfur and iron found on mineral surfaces are thought to have fulfilled major catalytic and energetic functions prior to the appearance of phosphate. One notable origin-of-life scenario suggests that the role of ATP was originally assumed by sulfur-containing compounds called thioesters, which are widely involved in protein, carbohydrate, and lipid metabolism. Despite the availability of iron and sulfur on early Earth, concrete evidence supporting these scenarios has been lacking.

To test the feasibility of the "iron-sulfur world hypothesis" and the "thioester world scenario," Segr and his team used computational systems biology approaches originally developed for large-scale analyses of complex metabolic networks. The researchers used a large database to assemble the complete set of all known biochemical reactions. After exploring this so-called "biosphere-level metabolism," the researchers identified a set of eight phosphate-free compounds thought to have been available in prebiotic environments. They then used an algorithm that simulated the emergence of primitive metabolic networks by compiling all possible reactions that could have taken place in the presence of these eight compounds, which included formate, acetate, hydrogen sulfide, ammonium, carbon dioxide, water, bicarbonate, and nitrogen gas.

This analysis revealed that a few simple prebiotic compounds could support the emergence of a rich, phosphate-independent metabolic network. This core network, consisting of 315 reactions and 260 metabolites, was capable of supporting the biosynthesis of a broad category of key biomolecules such as amino acids and carboxylic acids. Notably, the network was enriched for enzymes containing iron-sulfur clusters, bolstering the idea that modern biochemistry emerged from mineral geochemistry. Moreover, thioesters rather than phosphate could have enabled this core metabolism to overcome energetic bottlenecks and expand under physiologically realistic conditions.

"Before our study, other researchers had proposed a sulfur-based early biochemistry, with hints that phosphate may not have been necessary until later," Segr says. "What was missing until now was data-driven evidence that these early processes, rather than scattered reactions, could have constituted a highly connected and relatively rich primitive metabolic network."

Although this non-experimental evidence does not definitively prove that life started without phosphate, it provides compelling support for the iron-sulfur world hypothesis and the thioester world scenario. At the same time, the study calls into question the "RNA world hypothesis," which proposes that self-replicating RNA molecules were the precursors to all current life on Earth. Instead, the results support the "metabolism-first hypothesis," which posits that a self-sustaining phosphate-free metabolic network predated the emergence of nucleic acids. In other words, nucleic acids could have been an outcome of early evolutionary processes rather than a prerequisite for them.

"Evidence that an early metabolism could have functioned without phosphate indicates that phosphate may have not been an essential ingredient for the onset of cellular life," says first author Joshua Goldford of Boston University. "This proto-metabolic system would have required an energy source and may have emerged either on the Earth's surface, with solar energy as the main driving force, or in the depth of the oceans near hydrothermal vents, where geochemical gradients could have driven the first life-like processes."

In future studies, the researchers will continue to apply systems biology approaches to study the origin of life. "My hope is that these findings will motivate further studies of the landscape of possible historical paths of metabolism, as well as specific experiments for testing the feasibility of a phosphate-free sulfur-based core biochemistry," Segr says. "The idea of analyzing metabolism as an ecosystem-level or even planetary phenomenon, rather than an organism-specific one, may also have implications for our understanding of microbial communities. Furthermore, it will be interesting to revisit the question of how inheritance and evolution could have worked prior to the appearance of biopolymers."

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Biochemical 'fossil' shows how life may have emerged without ... - Science Daily

Anatomy

The anatomy of an NHRA Top Fuel run – FOXSports.com

TheHoonigans the guys behind the popular Gymkhana series with Ken Block have recently teamed up with NHRA Top Fuel driver Leah Pritchett.

Pritchett is off to a great start in the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. She has won the opening two rounds of the season from the No. 1 qualifying position and has already been breaking records with her Don Schumacher Racing team.

During interviews, Pritchett always ensures she thanks the team that puts together her 11,000-horsepower Dragster, and in the above video from The Hoonigans you can see why.

The video shows what goes on from the time Pritchett hops into her car ahead of a run, all the way down to the finish line.

Pritchetts run captured above was a 3.677, which took place during preseason testing on Friday, Feb. 3 at the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix.

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The anatomy of an NHRA Top Fuel run - FOXSports.com

Anatomy

The anatomy of heartbreak – The Kathmandu Post

What I felt for her was profound and real. I felt every bit of it as much as the hunger that stings my stomach and as much as the anger that blinds me. Yes, it was that real and strong. I know how genuine it was

Mar 5, 2017- The intensity of your love defines the intensity of your heartbreak. The deeper your love, the more unfathomable is your heartbreak. The shallower your love, the more fleeting your heartbreak is.

Perhaps, my love was far too deep. If not, why would I take forever to recover from our abrupt end? Why would I take forever to move on? Why would I take this long to be the person I knew I was supposed to be in the real world? How would I even know my love was deep when, in fact, I wasnt even there? All there was is the love itself. I was the love. Yes, I was love itself.

A heart breaks when your grand expectation from someone seems impossible to be met. A heart breaks when the utopian universe inside your head starts collapsing before it even sees the light of the day. A heart breaks when you surrender your soul to someone who is utterly soulless. A heart breaks when your heart starts beating more for someone else, and less for yourself. A heart breaks when you start thinking and feeling more for someone else, and less for yourself.

A heart breaks when you handcuff yourself to your love, kneel down before your beloved and surrender yourself completely only to become disregarded. A heart breaks when your own existence escapes your memory. A heart breaks not because it is fragile, but because you have been clumsy with it. I have been clumsy, very clumsy.

For the first time in my life, I had developed genuine feelings for somebody. For the first time in my life, I was experiencing the joy of being and sharing my life with someone. For the first time in my life, I felt like if there was someone at all for me out there, it had to be her and nobody else.

What I felt for her was profound and real. I felt every bit of it as much as the hunger that stings my stomach and as much as the anger that blinds me. Yes, it was that real and strong. I know how genuine it was. Only I know how real those tears really were and how sweet that smile really was.

But, maybe she could never see the authenticity in my love. Perhaps, she also thought of me as someone fake.

It kills you when your unconditional love is unappreciated. It maddens you when your utmost care goes unacknowledged. It suffocates you when your admiration is mocked. It hurts you when you become a clown in the most beautiful pair of eyes you have ever seen.

And its all real, every bit of pain. It is as real as the air you are breathing now.

Every winter, as I soak in the snow standing in the middle of a street, hands spread wide open, head bent backward and my two little teary eyes looking into the sky, I think of her. I let her memory envelop me. Every single snow flake reminds me of her.

Even when I try to shake off the snow, there never is enough energy in my body. It just seems to escape me. As I get home, fully covered in snow, I cant help but collapse on my bed. The snow leaves my clothes to melt on the sheets, soaking it in all its glory. I feel like I am laying on a pond, perhaps drowning in one. It is then that I start bawling like a baby. Why should the snow melt into water? Why should anything leave its state of being to become something else? Why did love leave me so soon?

She loved snow. She loved watching snowfall from her balcony. She loved the sound of silence as the entire city quietly snuggled under a blanket of snow. She knew that it was a myth that no two snowflakes are exactly the same. She pretended that she knew all the hundred names that Eskimos had for snow.

She loved snow, just like I did. She knew of snow, as much as I did. It was the snow that brought us together. Our mutual fondness for it invoked conversations and sparked an untold chemistry between us. It was because of the snow that we started opening up to each other, little by little.

Yes, it is strange, but arent all the beautiful things?

When you heart breaks, your ego bruises too. What if my ego is steering my heart, telling it how to feel? What if it is not the heart, but the ego? What if it is not love, but my pride that has been torn apart?

If I tackle this mindfully, love shouldnt be so hard. Maybe there is no such this as a heart break. Hearts never break. Hearts dont hurt. Hearts function perfectly until they stop functioning altogether. Perhaps, when we talk of heartbreak we are talking of our imagination not taking shape. May be when we talk about heartbreak, we are talking of our subtle agendas regarding somebody not being met. Perhaps we are talking about the sudden collapse of our countless expectations and our incapability of loving ourselves in the first place.

Heartbreak has nothing to do with the heart or with love. Maybe even when we cant control how we love, we can decide how we feel about heartbreak. Love is inevitable, heart break is optional. So what should I do now, who should I blame?

It looks like with my heart still intact, heartbreak is just a notion I inventedan emotional play maybe? Is this heartbreak just another excuse to escape from the now, from the reality? Is it my way of justifying why I have failed to love myself in the first place? Is it my way of feeding my ego-telling myself nobody will ever love her like I did?

I have been thinking how she doesnt deserve my love; is this tool of superiority complex? Am I trying to prove something here? Am I demanding more than I should here? Should I demand or prove something at all? Do I really need to claim that I love someone; do I really need to seek for credit? Cant I just love-without any anticipation or greed? The answer escapes me.

Once upon a time, on a beautiful evening I remember saying to her: You are the wind that blows my mind and the silence that soothes my heart. You are the beauty that blinds my eyes and the beast that scares my soul. You are the root that grows underground and the branch that grows towards the sky. You are the question I ask and the answer I find. You are the chaos to my thoughts and the order of my heartbeats. You are the yin and you are the yang. You are the contradiction that confuses me, and the ultimate truth that relieves me. That is why you are so beautiful, so intriguing.

What happened to that statement and all those words? Did I even mean every single thing? Could they have been as meaningless and as empty as I feel right now? Perhaps, she understood it long before I did.

Come to think of it, she loved herself more than anyone else. She was so much in love with herself that my so-called unconditional love didnt amount to anything. She knew how to live every single moment of her life and on her own to the fullest. She was a free soul who didnt entertain any kind of entanglement. She was a rebel who questioned everything and enjoyed basking in the glory of lifes mysteries. She was someone who dared to be nave and perhaps just herself. She was someone who could maintain her curiosity passionately.

Thats the reason why her eyes always twinkled. She was utterly blissful in her own being. She was a peaceful soul.

Thats the reason why everyone around her experienced peace. She was always joyful and that is why being around her was so intoxicating.

She was a dream that you wanted to hold on to. Thats why I loved her, and thats why I lost her.

I remember how she always pushed me to love myself first, when all I wanted to do was love her. Maybe she waited for me to love myself while I thought I could only do so if she loved me back.

The power of your ego defines the intensity of your heartbreak. The deeper your ego, the more unfathomable is your heartbreak. The shallower your ego, the more fleeting your heartbreak is. Look! Its snowing again.

Published: 05-03-2017 09:09

Link:
The anatomy of heartbreak - The Kathmandu Post

Anatomy

Anatomy of a difficult marriage – The New Indian Express

Historical lovers, courtesy researchers and biographers, cant act coy in death. Claretta: Mussolinis Last Lover by RJB Bosworth details the grand passion between Italys prime minister Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci, all the way down to that unforgettable portrait of their butchered bodies hung upside down in Piazzale Loreto. Sheela Reddys Mr and Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India chronicles a liaison closer home, but no less doomed.

If Mussolini was 49 to Clarettas 20, Mohammad Ali Jinnah was 40 to Ruttie Petits 16. Ruttie, a social butterfly in her gauze saris and backless blouses, romances a reticent and charismatic politician whom no one, not even her, called by his first name. He was her J.

Despite their elopement and Muslim-Parsi tag, the Jinnahs too had to contend with domestic ennui. The man from Karachi and the girl from Bombay fall for each other in haste but they repent in exquisite leisure.

While Motilal Nehru escapes having a son-in-law from another caste, Sir Dinshaw Petit was tricked into revealing his doublespeak when Jinnah asked him his opinion on inter-caste marriage and, after ascertaining his support for it, requested his daughters hand and the father refused.

It was Ruttie who chased after Jinnah and nothing stopped them from being one of the historys tempestuous couples. Prominent figures are part-narrators, like Sarojini Naidu, whose letters, maternal advice and perceptive insight into the matrimonial disaster between two such dissimilar people via letters to daughters Padmaja and Leilamani are a testimony to the timeline.

Ruttie sashays off the pages with great panache. Jinnah hardly blinked when his first wife, Emi Bai, died but Rutties death changes the tone of his silence. He had shaved off his moustache to marry hera precondition she laid downand been a most indulgent husband, letting her shop infinitely, getting out of his car to buy her roadside chaat, handing only child over to nannies so Ruttie could gallivant around. But couldnt give her what she wanted most, his time.

He was grooming himself for destiny, she was dressing up for him. It was her sparkling mischief against his staidness, her pout against his stiff upper lip. Naturally, they suffered. The same woman who told the court: Mr Jinnah has not abducted me... I abducted him, when her father sued him for kidnap, much later, when not a star was left in her eyes, told Sarojini he could never satisfy her mind and soul.

Sarojini documented Rutties changing persona in a letter to her daughter: There is something hard and cold about it all paint, powder, bare back...

Bedridden with discontent, Rutties body seemed unable to rise to the ordeal of breaking free even after she mentally fled the marriage. She kept her only daughter nameless through sheer lack of interest.

Since the book bats for Ruttieit is all about her desire, her disappointments and her deaththe reader awaits a husbandly version. One cant help wonder what Jinnahs matrimonial take might have been. It is not the first time a childish, high-strung flibbertigibbet wife drove mad a man inherently disinterested in coochie-coo.

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Anatomy of a difficult marriage - The New Indian Express

Anatomy

Style anatomy: Haiya Bokhari – The Express Tribune

The renowned fashion and lifestyle journalist, and quirky stylist, takes us through her style evolution

The renowned fashion and lifestyle journalist, and quirky stylist, takes us through her style evolution. Find out the challenges she faces in dressing herself and why she thinks its okay to ignore rules sometimes!

Understanding your body is the key to looking good and a trait found amongst all impeccably dressed fashionistas. While people shy away from talking about their bodies, these brave souls explain how they work their anatomies to their advantage.

How would you describe your body type?

Im petite. Ive always been naturally skinny so no complaints really.

Has your body type changed over the last five years?

It hasnt changed much actually. I think maybe just a couple of pounds of weight fluctuation every now and then, but nothing major.

How has your style changed over the years?

Id like to think its improved and evolved for the better. I used be very feminine and kind of boring in my style choices previously, but as of late my style has developed to match my personality.

In your opinion what is your most troublesome area?

I lack seven extra inches of leg.

How do you dress your body according to your body type?

I am short, so I try avoiding silhouettes that crop me or draw attention to my height. Cropped pants, culottes or anything that ends above my ankles is generally avoided, while high waisted pants and obi belts are my friends.

In your opinion what is the biggest mistake a person can make while dressing here?

Honestly, it depends on the version of the silhouette and how you style it. I feel sometimes you just need to ignore rules and wear what you want.

Which silhouettes suit your body the most?

Anything that elongates me,so high-waisted, boot-cut or flare pants.

What is the one piece of clothing that you shy away from wearing and why?

I havent found anything that Ive hated that badly yet!

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Style anatomy: Haiya Bokhari - The Express Tribune

Human Behavior

Philadelphia launches GovLabPHL to improve agency performance with behavioral science – StateScoop (registration)

By suggesting low-cost adjustments to existing programs, the new team is showing how a better understanding of human behavior can improve performance across government.

People do strange things.

To help explain why, in February, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney's Policy Office launched GovLabPHL, a multi-agency team for developing "innovative and evidence-based practice" in city government.

The team aims to increase participation in government services and remove barriers to access by studying the minds and actions of its citizens. Born initially out of a Living Cities grant awarded to the city in September 2014, GovLabPHL codifies and expands the creation of a team that puts human behavior first. Now with workshops, a 10-month speaker seriesand six projects underway covering topicsfrom bike share to littering the team is gaining interest from agencies across the city thatwant the low-cost human-centric treatment.

Prior to the formal launch of the team, GovLabPHL proved its efficacy by targeting the Department of Revenue's senior citizen water bill discount program. There were some who were eligible but no matter what the city did, it couldn't get those residentsto apply. The team did research and put out surveys to discover that people thought the paperwork was too confusing. So the city began sending out paperwork with pre-populated fields. It tried different sized envelopes to see which people responded to most. Ittried hand-writing addresses on the envelopes instead of printing them. The team found what worked and that became the new way of doing things.

Agencies are interested because the team is finding low-cost tweaks to improve theirmissions without turning anyone's office upside down, explained Anjali Chainani, director of policy at the mayor's office.

"We want to ensure we're getting our best return on investment, and what that means is that we have people on the ground from the front lines all the way through to the service delivery folks that are engaged in the process of how that program or how that service is actually being designed," Chainani said.

Six projects underway now include:

Chainani reported that about 20 other agencies have expressed interest in partnering with the team and its allies. GovLabPHL pairs behaviorists from five universities who are donating their time to help agencies achieve their program goals. The five partner universities are University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, Princeton University, and Swarthmore College.Dan Hopkins from University of Pennsylvania and Syon Bhanot from Swarthmore College are the program's lead academic partners.

The program can be broken into three components helping citizens and city employees to learn, piloting new programs and increasing engagement.

"We want to work with behavioral scientists and design experts in looking at the barriers we may unknowingly put up that may prevent residents from connecting with the city or engaging with a particular program," she said. "If there's a messaging campaign already invested in and going out, we layer that with design methods and we layer it with behavioral science to really look at what evidence has already told us about what motivates people's actions and how to keep people engaged."

Philadelphia follows similar programs launched in cities and federal agencies under the Obama administration. The Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST), a subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council, includes more than a dozen federal departments and agencies who completed more than 30 pilots. The United Kingdom runs a similar office called The Behavioral Insights Team. The Office of the City Administrator's Lab @ DC has embedded more than 30 researchers inside Washington, D.C., government.

"There are so many triggers in our environment that lead us to take a specific action that we don't really pay attention to and then there are equally enough things that we just ignore because there's mass information that comes to us," Chainani said. "We're looking to really be innovative in a government that's investing all this money in these programs, and is really able to reach a level that is comfortable for the citizens and where they feel comfortable approaching the city and applying for these programs."

Editor's Note: Minor edits were made to quotes for readability.

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Philadelphia launches GovLabPHL to improve agency performance with behavioral science - StateScoop (registration)

Genetics

Genetics key with high corn populations – Illinois Farmer Today

Higher corn populations may be the way of the future, but seed companies are finding yield and economic benefits from high populations are both hybrid- and field-specific.

Myron Stine, president of Stine Seed Company, said his company began to see benefits in hybrids that performed well at high populations in the early 1990s. Over time, they started to identify the genetics responsible and developed a high-population growing system matched with specific genetics.

Genetics are fluid, but it takes a long time to change those, Stine said. We view (high-population corn) as a constantly evolving technology (and) management practice.

Honing in on higher populations

Stine said the number of growers in 2016 who saw a difference from higher population corn was fewer than in 2015, but those who did notice a difference saw a more dramatic improvement.

Like other management practices, farmers who use higher populations expect better yields on average across multiple years just as varying benefits are expected from fungicide or split-season nitrogen applications because of variable growing season conditions.

Stine said that in 2016 some high-population plantings had nitrogen left over, while the high-population fields with the biggest yield gains used up the available nitrogen.

The company developed a twin 20-inch-row planting system with John Deere and Great Plains. The twin rows can be harvested with a 20-inch corn header while halving the row spacing width. A twin 30-inch-row system is also possible.

This system is also being used with variable rate technology. Growers are varying populations from 30,000 to 45,000 seeds per acre and changing hybrid selection as they move from less productive to more productive ground.

Pairing populations and hybrids

Paul Carter, DuPont Pioneer senior agronomy sciences manager, said all Pioneer hybrids are tested at 20 to 30 locations over several years, plus hundreds of on-farm trials. Planting populations in some of these tests range from 18,000 to 50,000 seeds per acre on 30-inch rows.

In general, Pioneer has found the seeding rate required to maximize yield increases as yield level increases, Carter said.

The economic optimum seeding rate varies from about 30,000 seeds/acre for locations yielding 150 bu./acre to over 37,000 seeds/acre for yields of 240 bu./acre. Average responses vary by hybrid and local situations.

Brad Van Kooten, DuPont Pioneer senior marketing manager, said in studies looking at high seeding rates in 15-inch rows, they found about 80 percent of the germplasm worked well with 30-inch-row performance 20 percent responded differently. Of the total, 10 percent performed better in narrow row, high-population environments over a period of at least three years.

The benefits from these top-performing, high-population hybrids are incremental, Van Kooten said. While statistically better, they were not make or break differences.

Producers should review soil fertility levels to make sure they match their higher production goals, he said.

Pioneer also found a correlation between higher seeding rate advantages and shorter maturity corn.

Location is likely an important factor as higher planting densities may be better able to take advantage of a shorter growing season, Van Kooten explained.

Carter said that over the past 50 years, improved corn genetics have led to a gain of around 2 bushels per acre per year.

A lot of that gain has come from developing hybrids that can withstand the stress of plant to plant competition, he said.

Its important for growers to keep up with this gain, but the additional population required may be near an additional 250 plants per acre per year, he said.

So theres been a steady, a linear increase. We havent seen a step change, he said.

Van Kooten said theyve learned that the highest yielding genetics may not always benefit from higher populations. Population should be a hybrid-by-hybrid decision.

To find the sweet spot for each hybrid, Pioneer has a number of tools, including a Planting Rate Estimator app. Local seed reps likely are the best resource for farmers, Van Kooten said.

Understanding high populations

Becks Hybrids Practical Farm Research Agronomist Alexandra Knight said theyve seen a trend of high population seeding rate success in highly productive soils with high organic matter.

Knight said Becks participated in a multi-hybrid planting study from 2012 to 2015, testing offensive and defensive hybrids and corresponding seeding rates based on yield map history. It found a 7 bushel per acre benefit in corn.

Their Iowa 2016 High Yield Attempt PFR study a moonshot of sorts for highest yield also showed a yield advantage with a higher seeding rate.

Knight said some of the factors that seem to play a role in making a hybrid that performs best at high populations include uniform emergence and consistency of ear fill. Precise nitrogen placement, both timing and location, has also been key in high-yield attempts.

In 2017, PFR research will include testing hybrids at planting rates from 30,000 to 42,000, Knight said.

As they continue to develop their high population corn system, Stine said they are finding a number of traits are responsible for making a hybrid that performs well at high populations.

Generally, we are seeing shorter plant types with more upright leaves, he said.

On some high-population hybrids, they are beginning to see tassels below top leaves of the plant, he added.

Earlier flowering is also common observation with successful early season hybrids, Stine said.

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Genetics key with high corn populations - Illinois Farmer Today